ION Newsletter, Volume 19 Number 4 (Winter 2009-2010) · put GPS in cell phones: assisted-GPS,...

put GPS in cell phones: assisted-GPS, massive parallel correlation, high sensitivity, coarse time navigation, decoding weak signals, host-based GPS, and CMOS-based RF chips.

User expectations of positioning per-formance have been conditioned by the experience with cell phones, particularly

rapid service and availability in most locales. “Consumers wait six seconds [for a mobile device to perform a task] before pushing the button again,” said plenary speaker Greg Turetzky of CSR.

Assisted-GPS techniques use rough loca-tion and timing data that can lead to quick fixes and better sensitivity in many situations; but blocked, weak, and reflected signals in and among buildings can still create a differential between the user experience with communications and navigation.

T h e I n s t i t u t e o f N a v i g a t i o n • 8 5 5 1 R i x l e w L a n e , S u i t e 3 6 0 • M a n a s s a s , V i r g i n i a 2 0 1 0 9

ITM 2010 continued on page 10

2010 ION INterNatIONal techNIcal MeetINg

Newsletter

President’s Report: A Year in Review ................................2

Loran Decommissioning ......................3

From the ION Historian Part I: The Great Silk Road ................4

Quantum Logic Clock ..........................7

Mini-Urban Challenge .......................11

Autonomous Snowplow Competition ......................................12

Section News and Notes .....................13

Navigation Novelties ..........................14

ION Calendar .....................................15

GNSS Program Updates ......................16

Corporate Profile ..............................19

New ION Corporate Members ............19

NOAA Satellites to the Rescue ............20

Science & Engineering Indicators ......22

InSIde ITM Highlights, Pages 8 & 9

Navigation technology developments and their effect on public consciousness do

not occur in a vacuum.That theme recurred throughout presen-

tations at the plenary session of this year’s ION International Technical Meeting (ITM), held January 25–27 in San Diego. Titled

“Navigation Behind Closed Doors: Challenges of Indoor and Urban Positioning,” the session featured speakers who linked the perfor-mance of mobile devices and the expecta-tion of ubiquitous positioning capability by consumers, driven in part by the presence of GPS chips in an estimated 500 million mobile phones now in use around the world.

Dr. Frank van Diggelen of Broadcom Cor-poration — holding up a bag of more than a dozen GPS-equipped mobile phones — identified seven technology enablers that have

NavigatioN BehiNd Closed doors

Volume 19, Number 4 The Quarterly Newsletter of The Institute of Navigation Winter 2009–2010

“More GNSS sensitivity can’t solve indoor availability alone,” said Turetzky. GNSS receiver design is reaching the point of diminishing returns at which accuracy gets worse and achieving 100 percent accuracy with GPS alone becomes difficult.

Tracking the Firefighters. Photos courtesy of WPI.

Ice Sculpture at the St. Paul’s Winter Carnival, home to the upcoming 2011 Autonomous Snowplow Competition. See page 12.

ION Newsletter 2 Winter 2009-2010

FrOM the PresIdeNt dr. Mikel Miller

The Purpose of The ION®

Founded in 1945, The Institute of Navigation is the world’s premier non-profit professional society dedicated to the advancement of the art and science of positioning, navigation and timing.

2010 Executive CommitteePresident: Dr. Mikel MillerExecutive Vice President:

Dr. Todd WalterTreasurer: Dr. John Betz

Eastern Region Vice President: Ms. Patricia Doherty

Western Region Vice President: Mr. John Clark

Satellite Division Chair: Dr. Pratap Misra

Immediate Past President: Dr. Chris Hegarty

How to Reach The ION®

Telephone: 703-366-2723Facsimile: 703-366-2724

Web site: http://www.ion.orgE-mail: [email protected]

The ION® National Office8551 Rixlew Lane, Suite 360

Manassas, VA 20109

The ION® National Office StaffDirector of Business Development/

Operations: Lisa BeatyTechnical Director: Carl Andren

Program/Author Liaison: Miriam LewisGraphic Designer: Alison Jackson

Information Systems: Rick Buongiovanni

Membership & Marketing: Ken EsthusPublications: Rachel Stoker

Newsletter Editor: Glen Gibbons

A Year in Review

I have been deeply honored to serve as president of The Institute of Naviga-

tion (ION) – an organization I’ve been passionate about for more than 20 years. It has been a privilege to be associated with a professional society comprised of so many talented members. I feel blessed to be able to serve a second term in 2010.

At the beginning of my 2009 term as president I established the following goals for myself and the organization:• IncreaseIONmembershipbyamini-

mum of 10% with a focus on corporate membership.

• Increaseinternationalparticipationin ION activities and increase ION’s international visibility.

• ActivelyseekopportunitiesfortheIONto sponsor or facilitate workshops that provide a forum for discussion, debate and the dissemination of information related to Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT).

• GrowtheION’seducationalprogramsfor the next generation of PNT profes-sionals and ION members.As you review my column you will see

that this past year the ION has made sig-nificant strides in achieving these goals.

MEMBERSHIPI am happy to report that 2009 ION indi-vidual membership has increased 35% over 2008 and the ION’s corporate membership increased from 69 organizations to 108 organizations in 2009. Membership growth can be attributed to the ION investing staff resources in membership retention and recruitment, aggressively market-ing corporate membership to the ION’s exhibitor list, making personal membership renewal telephone calls as membership expires, conducting direct membership mail campaigns, running membership recruit-

ment programs at ION meetings and directly involving the ION Council in membership recruitment efforts.

I would like to thank Lisa Beaty in leading the development of the initiatives to accomplish this; and to the national office staff, specifically Ken Esthus (ION’s membership marketing coordinator) for the execution. This would be a great accomplishment anytime, but given the economic environment of the past year, it is even more praiseworthy.

MEETINGSThe ION hosted four successful meetings in 2009:• InternationalTechnicalMeeting(ITM)

was held in January 2009 in Anaheim, California with 330 participants.

• TheJointNavigationConference(JNC)was held in June 2009 in Orlando, Florida with 484 participants and 25 organizations represented in the exhibit hall. The JNC conference is co-spon-sored by both ION and the Joint Services Data Exchange (JSDE) and this past year received several endorsements from the DOD as the premiere Positioning, Navi-gation and Timing (PNT) conference for the military and government profes-sionals. We expect a strong showing in 2010.

• IONGNSSwasheldinSeptember2009in Savannah, Georgia with 1203 partici-pants and 68 organizations represented in the exhibit hall. The GNSS techni-cal program was one of the largest on record. Abstract submission increased 13% over the prior year and the techni-cal program was 10% larger in 2009 than in 2008. Thirty-nine percent of the total attendance was from outside the U.S. The Satellite Division, led by

MILLER continued on page 18


Obama Administration Scuttles Loran-C

Loran Decommissioning

“Loran is dead; long live eLoran.”

Such was the doughty expression of Dr. Bob Lilley in the wake of the U.S.

Coast Guard’s January 7 Federal Register publication of a notice announcing plans to terminate Loran-C beginning February 8. Lilley, secretary of the International Loran Association (ILA), remains hopeful that the end of the venerable LOng RAnge Navigation system will not also rule out the possibil-ity of completing an enhanced version (eLoran) of the low-frequency terrestrial radionavigation infrastructure — even if under some other name.

The Federal Register notice, which stated that all Loran-C stations would cease transmissions by October 1, 2010, also cer-tified that termination of the system would not adversely affect the safety of maritime navigation, a statement paralleling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) certification that Loran-C is not needed as a backup to the GPS system or to meet any other federal navigation requirement. The notice acknowledged that a decision has not been made on the need for a GPS backup.

In the meantime, however, the announcement apparently brings to a close the long battle to preserve and upgrade the Loran system to serve as a multimodal backup to failures or interference to the Global Positioning System. The Bush administration had actually reversed an earlier position and announced plans in 2008 to implement eLoran. However, the Coast Guard and DHS had not acted on that commitment by the time the new Obama leadership came to office.

The USCG/DHS action comes despite the expenditure of $160 million over the last 10 years to partially modernize the system and an independent assessment team’s (IAT’s) unanimous recommendation to establish eLoran as a GPS backup.

Supporters of eLoran point out that the cut-off of funding for Loran-C did not preclude a later investment in a modern-ized version of the system. Moreover, even

though the Coast Guard will shut down the Loran sites, the agency apparently only has funds enough to actually tear down a hand-ful of older, unmodernized stations, leaving open the possibility of reopening the facili-ties if funding becomes available for eLoran.

Unhappy SupportersThe action drew expressions of dismay from nations, including many in Europe, who operate Loran systems of their own.

Particularly outspoken were advocates for the system in the United Kingdom, where the General Lighthouse Authorities (GLA) of the UK and Ireland (equivalent to USCG for navigation services) have an eLoran pilot

project under way. Loran actually was an advanced American version of the British GEE radio navigation system that was used early in World War II.

The federal action also elicited strong criticism from U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Maine, the highest-ranking Republican member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“The mistaken decision to terminate the Long Range Aide to Navigation (LORAN)-C navigational signal ignores the law, which requires the Secretary of Homeland Security

to determine if this infrastructure is needed as a backup for the Global Positioning System (GPS) prior to termination,” Collins said January 7.

“Given the vulnerabilities and limitations of GPS, LORAN should be maintained and enhanced to become a vital backup system to GPS for various critical infrastructure users,” Collins said. “In terms of taxpayer investment, the best course of action clearly would be to keep and upgrade to eLORAN. In terms of commerce, national defense and security, following this course of action becomes even more apparent and indisputable.”

LORAN continued on page 6

Future of Loran? Site of decommissioned World War II Loran-A station, Mangersta, United Kingdom. Photo, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.


Part I: FrOM the great sIlK rOad tO eUrOPe’s age OF dIscOVerY — FrOM the ION hIstOrIaN, MarVIN MaY

Henry the Navigator and 15th Century European Exploration

Various trade routes that made up the Great Silk Road (in red). Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

By the early 1400s, new navigation tools and mapping advances made Europe’s

exploration and colonization of most of the rest of the world possible. During this period, coastal navigation from city to city in the Mediterranean offered few major obstacles. The Mediterranean was a long, narrow, enclosed sea in which familiar landmarks would appear on the horizon sooner or later. Cities such as Venice, Amalfi, and Genoa were becoming hubs of maritime commercial traffic.

The magnetic compass, quadrant, astrolabe and the requisite solar tables of declination that accompanied the latter were beginning to be widely used.

Portolan charts, the oldest sea charts in existence, dated back to the late 1200s. They showed the Mediterranean with astonishing cartographic precision. The rediscovery of Ptolemy’s geography

in 1409, when it was translated from Greek to Latin, convinced learned men that a coordinate system based on latitude and longitude was the best way to describe terrestrial positions.

Geography Is DestinyAlone among the Mediterranean cultures, Portugal faced the Atlantic yet had no direct access to the Mediterranean itself. Thus, by necessity, if the nation wanted to expand its horizons, it must turn towards the open waters of the Atlantic. So, the Portuguese sailed the great ocean, hun-dreds of miles from land and made most of Europe’s high-sea expeditions in the early 1400s. They learned about wind pat-terns and ocean currents and developed sophisticated sailing and ship construction techniques that left the other European maritime powers lagging behind.

The Great Silk Road connected

the empires of Asia and the

Mediterranean countries during

the first centuries of the first

millennium, serving as the

primary overland trade route

between the two regions. Caravans

of mules and camels driven by

itinerant merchants carried silks

and spices from China to

trading posts along the way.

For Europeans, these coveted goods

created the desire that inspired

the great intercontinental

ocean voyages of the

15th and 16th centuries.

The Great Silk Road connected

the empires of Asia and the

Mediterranean countries during

the first centuries of the first

millennium, serving as the

primary overland trade route

between the two regions. Caravans

of mules and camels driven by

itinerant merchants carried silks

and spices from China to

trading posts along the way.

For Europeans, these coveted goods

created the desire that inspired

the great intercontinental

ocean voyages of the

15th and 16th centuries.


Replica of the ship that made the European age of discovery possible – the Portuguese Caravel (Musee del la Marine, Paris) Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Top detail of Padrao dos Descobrimentos, a massive monument commemorating Portugal’s voyages of discovery. It was unveiled in 1960 in Lisbon harbor on the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In the next decade, the Azores were discovered by Diego de Sevilha and the first Portuguese settlement established in 1432. This discovery involved a journey of 800 miles into the Atlantic with no coastline to guide them.

Next came the Canary Islands. These were inhabited by the aboriginal “Guanches” who had had dealings with the Romans. The Portuguese used the islands as a strategic offshore base for com-merce with coastal African states and traders.

A Continuing JourneyIn 1433, Henry’s brother Duarte became king. Duarte supported Henry’s plans and the latter was able to persuade his captains to venture further to the south along the coast of Africa, which was virtually unknown to the Europeans. Every year ships returned with new discoveries as Henry’s captains

Prince Henry — posthumously called “The Navigator” by the British — oversaw most of the Portuguese discoveries during this period. Henry was one of several high-achieving children of King John I of Portugal and Phillipa of Lancaster, his English queen. (The appropriateness and worthiness of the “Navigator” label ascribed to Henry are largely disputed by historians. Prince Henry’s accomplish-ment and legacies are discussed in the second part of this article.)

Henry financed and established the first European colonies on the islands off the coast of West Africa and the Lisbon slave market — the beginning of the devastating Atlantic slave trade.

In 1418, Portuguese navigator João Goncalves Zarco was driven off course by a storm and the accident led him to rediscover the uninhabited Atlantic island of Madeira west of Morocco, first located by Europeans the previous century but never occupied. Henry immediately started a colony so that he could claim Madeira for Portugal.

systematically took their vessels further towards the south.

In the early voyages, Cape Nun (Ni-geria) was the most southerly headland to which the seamen were prepared to sail. They would go no further fearing the legend that nobody could return if they ventured beyond Cape Nun. (Legend had it that at the tropics a vertical sun was believed to boil the sea and to scorch the inhabitants, a “fact” that Europeans as-sumed by observing the skin color of the indigenous population.)

Cape Nun was finally rounded in about 1434 when Gil Eanes reached Cape Bojadar at a latitude of 29 degrees. In 1441 an expedition reached Rio de Ouro which lay on the Tropic of Cancer. Then came Cape Blanco, named for its dazzling white beaches at a latitude of 21degrees. The next significant cape was Cape Verde at less than 15 degrees from the equator; navigator Dinis Dias correctly noted it as the most westerly cape in Africa.

SILK ROAD continued on page 6

In the 1450s, Henry’s captains encoun-tered the Cape Verde Islands and this gave the Portuguese a sequence of provisioning stations from where they could reach the gold, silver, spices and slaves of the west coast of Africa. The islands were better suited than the mainland for this purpose, partly because of the climate and partly because of the ease with which they could be defended.

In 1456 Alvise de Cadamosto and Nuno Tristão reached the River Gambia and their journals describe the explorers eating the flesh of an elephant. The Portuguese erected stone columns, called padrões, at key capes and headlands to show Henry’s claim to the west coast of Africa.

Henry had sown the seeds of great voyages in the future. It was not until a generation after his death in 1460 that the most important Portuguese navigation achievement was made: the existence of a sea passage around Africa to India and East Asia.


Contemporary painting of Infante D. Henrique. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

SILK ROAD continued from page 5

No Requirement for Loran-CAccording to the notice signed by Rear Admiral Kevin S. Cook, the USCG’s director of prevention policy, Loran-C is no longer required by the armed forces, the transportation sector, or the nation’s security interests, and is used only by a small segment of the population. According to the Federal Register statement, the Loran-C system was not established as, nor was it intended to be, a viable systemic backup for GPS.

Backups to GPS for safety-of-life navigation applications, or other critical applications can be other radionavigation systems, or operational procedures, or a combination of these systems and procedures, according to the administration’s assessment. Backups to GPS for timing applications can be a highly accurate crystal oscillator or atomic clock and a communications link to a timing source that is traceable to Coordinated Universal Time.

With respect to transportation — including aviation, commercial maritime, rail, and highway modes — the Department of Transportation has determined that sufficient alternative navigation aids currently exist in the event of a loss of GPS-based services, and therefore Loran currently is not needed as a back-up navigation aid for transportation safety-of-life users, the agencies have concluded.

According to the announcement, DHS “will continue to work with other Federal agencies to look across the critical infrastructure and key resource sectors identified in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan assessment to determine if a single, domestic system is needed as a GPS backup for critical infrastructure applications requiring precise time and frequency”.

“If a single, domestic national system to back up GPS is identified as being necessary, the Department of Homeland Security will complete an analysis of potential backups to GPS. The continued active operation of Loran-C is not necessary to advance this evaluation.”

LORAN continued from page 3

Portions of this article were excerpted from Peter Aughton, Voyages that Changed the World, Quercus Publishing, London, England, 2007.

Marvin B. May is the chief scientist at Pennsylvania State University’s Naviga-tion Research and Development Center, Warminster, PA.

An opportunity to hear the world’s leading authorities on global navigation satellite systems!

Exhibitors — Don’t Delay! Prime spaces go fast, reserve today!www.ion.org

The 23rd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation

September 21–24, 2010Pre-Conference Tutorials September 20 & 21

Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon

CGSIC Symposium September 20 & 21


Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S.

Department of Commerce, have built an en-hanced version of an experimental atomic clock based on a single aluminum atom that is now the world’s most precise clock.

More than twice as precise as the previous record-setting timepiece based on a mercury atom, the new clock could help pave the way for improved navigation systems, such as GPS and other GNSSes, that depend on precision timing for their accuracy.

The new aluminum clock — the second version of NIST’s “quantum logic clock”— would neither gain nor lose one second in about 3.7 billion years, according to mea-surements to be reported in a forthcoming issue of Physical Review Letters. The new work described in the article was support-ed in part by the Office of Naval Research.

“This paper is a milestone for atomic clocks” for a number of reasons, says NIST postdoctoral researcher James Chou, who developed most of the improvements.

The new clock is so called because it borrows the logical processing used for atoms storing data in quantum computing, another major focus of the same NIST re-search group. The new version of the logic clock offers more than twice the precision of the original.

The Rise of OpticsIn addition to demonstrating that aluminum is now a better timekeeper than mercury, the latest results confirm that optical clocks are widening their lead — in some re-spects — over the NIST-F1 cesium fountain clock, the U.S. civilian time standard, which currently keeps time to within one second in about 100 million years. The cesium clocks on board GPS satellites trace their lineage to the same technology.

Because the international definition of the second (in the International System of Units, or SI) is based on the cesium atom, cesium remains the “ruler” for official timekeeping, and no clock can be more accurate than cesium-based standards such as NIST-F1.

The logic clock is based on a single aluminum ion (electrically charged atom) trapped by electric fields and vibrating at ultraviolet light frequencies, which are 100,000 times higher than microwave fre-quencies used in NIST-F1 and other similar time standards around the world.

Optical clocks thus divide time into smaller units and could someday lead to time standards more than 100 times as accurate as today’s microwave standards. Higher frequency is one of a variety of

factors that enables improved precision and accuracy.

Too Accurate to Measure?Aluminum is one contender for a future time standard to be selected by the inter-national precise timing community. NIST’s construction of a second, independent version of the logic clock proves that the technology can be replicated, making it one of the first optical clocks to achieve that distinction.

Because the second is currently based on an earlier technology that cannot measure the precision of a more precise instrument, the scientists are not unable to say exactly how many times their invention “ticks” per second.

So, instead, NIST scientists evaluated the new logic clock by probing the aluminum ion with a laser to measure the exact “reso-nant” frequency at which the ion jumps to a higher-energy state, carefully accounting for all possible deviations such as those caused by ion motions.

The clock’s precision is determined based on how closely repeated measure-ments can approach the atom’s exact resonant frequency — the smaller the deviations from the true value of the reso-nant frequency, the higher the precision of the clock.

NIST scientists also compared their two logic clocks by using the resonant laser frequency from one clock to probe the ion in the other clock. Fifty-six separate com-parisons were made, each lasting between 15 minutes and 3 hours.

The two logic clocks exhibit virtually identical “tick” rates — differences don’t show up until measurements are extended to 17 decimal places.

Chin-wen Chou with the world’s most precise clock, based on the vibrations of a single aluminum ion trapped inside the metal cylinder (center right). Photo by J. Burrus/NIST.

Could Improve Navigation Systems

Quantum Logic Clock Sets a New Standard for Time


This year’s International Technical Meeting, (ITM) held in San Diego, California, focused on navigation behind closed doors — the challenges of indoor and urban positioning. The meeting was attended by more than 300 registrants. The ITM 2010 program was led by Patricia Doherty, Boston College, general chair and Dr. Paul Kline, Honeywell Aero-space, program chair. The Institute of Navigation would like to extend its thanks to them for their considerable time and effort and to all the session chairs and other ION members whose efforts went into making this meeting a success.

The Institute would also like to recognize for its generous, and delicious, dessert sponsorship at the ION’s Annual Awards Banquet.

The Institute would also like to acknowledge the following companies that provided table top displays:

Congratulations ION Annual Award Recipients

Dr. Samuel M. Burka Award

Denis Laurichesse, Flavien Mercier, Jean-Paul Berthias, Patrick

Broca & Luca CerriFor their paper “Integer Ambiguity Resolution on

Undifferenced GPS Phase Measurements and its Application to PPP and Satellite Precise Orbit Determination” published

in the Summer 2009 issue of NAVIGATION, Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp 135.

Early Achievement Award

Dr. José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez For his remarkable contributions to the design of the

Galileo frequency and signal plan and for his sustained technical work on compatibility and interoperability.

Superior Achievement Award

Capt. James R. Pancoe For valor, courage and excellence. For perfect execution of

Close Air Support supporting 43 embattled Special Operation Forces operators, and furthering the art of navigation

while destroying terrorist organizations.

Captain P.V.H. Weems Award

Edward H. Martin For his contributions to the selection of the P code and C/A code GPS waveforms, for his leadership in the development of the first GPS receiver and for his years of contributions to the application of GPS to the U.S. military and Allied users, civil transportation systems including aviation, and his clear and concise teachings to the next generation of space-based navigation developers.

Thomas L. Thurlow Award

Dr. Dennis M. Akos For contributions to the design and application of GNSS software defined radios, embedded receivers and detailed observation of GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Compass signals.

Norman P. Hays Award

Col. David W. Madden For leading a ten-year development program over 400 multi-organizational personnel through delivery and transition to operation of an 850 million dollar GPS control segment system. For his execution of “back-to-basics” baseline review for the three next-generation navigation programs totaling more than two and a half billion dollars, paving the way for continuing GPS as the gold-standard for world-wide position, navigation, and timing.

THANK YOU EXHIBITORS!CAST NAVIGATION LLC

INSIdE GNSS

INTERSENSE INC.

IXSEA INC.

L-3 COMMUNICATIONS

SPIRENT FEdERAL

746TH TEST SQUAdRON-US AIR FORCE

Dr. Paul Kline, Program Chair; Dr. Mikel Miller, ION President; Patricia Doherty, General Chair.

2010 International Technical Meeting

Dr. Raynor L. Duncombe For his involvement in developing the initial methods for tracking the first artificial satellites, and for his leadership in the production of almanacs and the development of the new celestial reference system in the 1970s, and for his contributions in the founding of the International Association of Institutes of Navigation.

Dr. Boris Pervan For his extraordinary contribution to the advancement of differential GPS technology and integrity assurance, for his excellence as a teacher, and for his service to The Institute of Navigation.

John W. Lavrakas For contributions to the development of GPS

Control Segment and user applications, and for service to The Institute of Navigation.

Welcome ION’s Newest Fellows

Election to fellow membership recognizes the distinguished contributions of ION members to the advancement of the technology, management, practice and

teaching of the arts and sciences of navigation; and/or for lifetime contributions to The Institute. Former ION members who are not currently active may be elected to non-voting fellow membership. Election to honorary fellow membership is authorized for non-members qualified by their accomplishments. Members of other national institutes are also considered in this category. Details of the nomination process and deadlines can be found at www.ion.org.


HighlightsMembers are encouraged to submit nominations for one or more of the following annual awards given by The Institute of Navigation for excellence in navigation.

Early Achievement Award — for an individual early in his or her career who has made an outstanding achievement in the art and science of navigation.

Norman P. Hays Award — for outstanding encouragement, inspiration and support leading to the advancement of navigation.

Superior Achievement Award— for individuals making outstanding contributions to the advancement of navigation.

Thomas Thurlow Award — for outstanding contributions to the science of navigation.

Tycho Brahe Award—for outstanding achievement in space navigation.

Captain P.V.H. Weems Award — for continuing contributions to the art and science of navigation.

Official nomination forms, along with brochures on the background and purpose of each award, are available from the ION National office by phone, 703-366-2723, or via the Web site at www.ion.org. Nominations must be received by October 15.

The awards and accompanying engraved bronze plaques will be presented at the ION International Technical Meeting, January 24-26, 2011, in San Diego, California. The ION urges you to participate in the nomination process so deserving individuals from the navigation community will receive appropriate recognition.

In addition to the above awards, the winner of the Samuel M. Burka Award — for outstanding achievement in the preparation of papers advancing navigation and space guidance — as chosen by the editorial panel of ION’s journal, NAVIGATION, will be honored.

Address correspondence to Awards Committee, The Institute of Navigation, 8551 Rixlew Lane, Suite 360, Manassas, VA 20109, phone: 703-366-2723; fax: 703-366-2724; e-mail: [email protected].

Nominations for ION fellows may be submitted by currently active Institute of Navigation members. All nominations must conform to ION nomination guidelines as outlined on the nomination form. Nominations must include a brief biography and proposed citation.

Details of the nomination process and forms are available at www.ion.org. Nominations must be received by October 15 to qualify.

Election to Fellow membership recognizes the distinguished contribution of ION members to the advancement of the technology, management, practice and teaching of the arts and sciences of navigation, and/or for lifetime contributions to the Institute.

Former members of the ION who are not currently active members of the organization may be elected to non-voting Fellow membership. Election to Honorary Fellow membership is authorized for non-members of The Institute of Navigation who are qualified by their accomplishments for recognition as a non-voting Fellow member. Members of other national institutes of navigation are also considered in this category.

Kindly address any correspondence to Fellow Selection Committee, The Institute of Navigation, 8551 Rixlew Lane, Suite 360, Manassas, VA 20109, fax: 703-366-2724, e-mail: [email protected].

Annual Award Nominations

Fellow Nominations


To achieve a comparable positioning capability reliably in all environments will require design engineers and manufacturers to move beyond autonomous GPS, which has popularized the value of location.

“We’re right at the boundary of GPS, which is the past, and GPS-plus, which is the future,” van Diggelen told the ITM audience.

Among those “plus” technologies, van Diggelen and Turetzky identified other GNSS systems (e.g., GLONASS, Galileo), Wi-Fi positioning, GSM (cell tower–based), and especially MEMS inertial (accelerometers, rate gyros).

More than Consumer PreferenceThe importance of such performance goes beyond the convenience of finding a nearby restaurant or store — indeed, position/location under adverse conditions can be a matter of life or death.

Dr. Jim Duckworth, of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), described his organization’s experience — and frustrations — in attempting to fashion practical and effective location and tracking

systems for first responders. This is not a recent effort. Three years

ago, Duckworth introduced WPI’s effort to use RF ranging to provide such capabilities in responding to emergencies indoors in the wake of a fatal fire that left several firefighters disoriented and lost inside a blazing warehouse. (See article, ION Newsletter, Winter 2006–2007 issue.)

An initial test of a WPI multicarrier RF location systems employing pseudo-array signals showed some promise, but less

promising results came out of subsequent field demonstrations and assessment of personnel location and tracking systems for emergency responders held at the Natick (Massachusetts) Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center (NSRDEC).

Funded by the Department of Home-land Security (DHS), the tests evaluated five systems under search and rescue scenarios conducted by Massachusetts fire and state police academies and local departments. Only 3 of 16 attempted firefighting scenarios were completed successfully and 7 out of 10 law-enforcement scenarios. In most cases the locator systems performed worse and took longer than traditional search methods.

In summing up the efforts since 2000,

Duckworth said that “very substantial prog-ress” had been made, but that no deployable system existed 10 years later. The problem is not merely technically difficult but also chal-lenging from operational and deployability perspectives. He predicted that no single solution will emerge but rather a fusion of approaches will be needed.

The next annual technology workshop is scheduled August 2–3, 2010, at WPI. For more information visit: http://www.ece.wpi.edu/research/PPL/2010pr807.html.

Many TechnologiesMost of the plenary speakers offered a list of one or more potential solutions to ensure performance in difficult environments. Perhaps the longest was offered by Dr. Maarten Uijt de Haag, Ohio University: robust GPS precision navigation (tight or ultra-tight integration of INS or integration with other dead-reckoning sensors), alternative navigation methods including signals-of-opportunity (such as radio, TV, Wi-Fi, or cell phones), image/laser-aided inertial navigation, beacon-based navigation, and precision INS and microelectromechanical systems; and multiple sensor/vehicle integration.

Dr. Binghao Li, a research assistant at the University of New South Wales, Australia, provided an overview of indoor positioning techniques beginning with the active badge/infrared system developed by Olivetti Research Lab in the late 1980s, AT&T Laboratories’ Bat Location System developed in the 1990s based on ultrasound time-of-flight trilateration, through the commercial Locata system (a terrestrial GPS-like positioning technology) and IMES (Indoor MEssaging System) that uses a special signal broadcast by Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS).

Li presented considerable data on his research into two signal strength-based techniques proposed for Wi-Fi positioning: trilateration and location “fingerprinting” that maps the location-sensitive parameters of measured radio signals in areas of interest.

While most speakers focused on how to ensure any positioning in adverse circum-stances, Dr. Craig Shankwitz described a

ITM 2010 continued from page 1

Results from a CSR/SiRF indoors tracking experiment using A-GPS and MEMS IMU in Valley Fair Mall, San Jose, California. Photo courtesy of Google Maps.


Dr. Penina Axelrad Receives Max S. Peters Service Award

Dr. Penina Axelrad receiving her award from the College of Engineering & Applied Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB).

Mini-Urban Challenge Co-Chair Lt. Carrie New and the Louisiana Regional Competition winners.

project at the University of Minnesota’s Intelligent Vehicles Lab seeking to provide robust high-precision positioning for buses traveling in narrow shoulder lanes on routes passing from rural into urban areas.

The project’s performance goals include maintaining 20-centimeter accuracy through GPS outages of up to 20 seconds (95 percent of the time) while providing driver assistance in avoiding collisions. Dual-frequency carrier phase differential GPS positioning, geospatial databases, multi-plane laser scanners, and RFID sen-sors are among the technologies incor-porated into the prototype driver-assist system.

The ION ITM plenary theme reap-peared in two sessions on urban & indoor navigation technology and, by extension, in sessions on multisensor navigation, alternate sensors and emerging navigation, and inertial navigation.

The College of Engineering and

Applied Science recognized Professor

Penina (Penny) Axelrad’s exemplary

service by presenting her with the 2009

Max S. Peters Service Award. Penny is

an ION Fellow and past president of

The Institute of Navigation. She was

the recipient of the ION’s 2009 Kepler

Award and the ION’s 2003 Tycho

Brahe Award for her contributions

in the fields of satellite and space

navigation, guidance and control. Her

service includes Acting Chair for the

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Sciences at UCB, 2007-2008.

The first regional competition of the ION 2010 Mini-Urban Challenge

was held January 30-31 in Bossier City, LA. 19 teams and over 100 students competed, making this the largest regional competition to date.

Parkway High School’s “Black Team” (pictured right) took first prize and Benton High School’s “Tiger Team” claimed second prize. These teams will compete at the National Competition in Dayton, OH, June 3-5.

The Louisiana Regional Competition was organized with the help of the Cyber Innovation Center (CIC) in Bossier City, LA. G.B. Cazes, Vice President of the CIC, praised the students who participated.

“We were so impressed with all the teams and are very excited about this becoming an annual event in Bossier City,

Mini-Urban ChallengeBossier City, LA, Regional Competition

Louisiana. The ION Mini-Urban Challenge is an example of how we’re bringing technology and STEM education to the forefront and looking to provide new opportunities for students and teachers,” said Cazes.

Faculty and students from Louisiana Tech University also organized the “LA Tech Challenge” to engage students between official competition activities. Teams were presented a unique problem and had to use a variety of problem solving, critical thinking and programming skills.

“They did a great job and showed some innovative thinking,” said Dr. Heath Tims, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Louisiana Tech.

The ION Mini-Urban Challenge is free for participating schools. Thanks to the generosity of corporate sponsors,

participating teams receive a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® kit at no cost from ION.

For more information on the Mini-Urban Challenge and sponsorship opportunities visit www.MiniUrbanChallenge.com.


Since 1886, St. Paul, Minnesota, has encouraged northern prairie citizens to

warm up the winter by blowing off a little steam at their famous Winter Carnival. This year, the ION North Star Section contributed to the quirkiness by introducing the Autonomous Snowplow Competition at Rice Park, the center of the annual event.

The snowplow contest will be the winter version of the ION’s summer robotic lawn mower competition. Contestants will have one year to design and test a snowplow that successfully clears a pre-defined path of snow. The first actual competition will be held at the 125th St. Paul Winter Carnival in January 2011.

The winning team will take home $2,500 and an invitation to present their design and display their vehicle at the 2011 ION GNSS Conference in Portland, Oregon. Second- and third-place winners will receive $1,500 and $500 in cash. A $500 prize and the Golden Shovel Award will go to the winners of the best student presentation.

The contest is open to teams of students 18 years or older who are studying navigation and guidance. Other teams may compete as well, but they must include at least one student on the team. Apply as soon as possible on the competition website at http://www.autosnowplow.com.

The founding sponsors are The Institute of Navigation’s Satellite Division, Lockheed Martin Corporation, ASTER Labs, Inc., and Honeywell, Inc. They welcome additional company and organization sponsors — contact sponsor representatives Suneel I. Sheikh, ASTER Labs, Inc., Wayne Soehren, or Mark Ahlbrecht, Honeywell, Inc., if you’d like to be part of this exciting event. Their contact information is on the contest website, http://www.autosnowplow.com/Sponsorship.html.

All of those helping out with the kick-off promotion in the tent display at last month’s

Winter Carnival saw lots of activity in Rice Park on both days, including a city-wide parade, local bands playing in the nearby band shell, and ice-carving contests. It rained and sleeted steadily on Saturday, dampening the event displays but not the spirits of the ION volunteers and carnival attendees.

Organizers said this was the first time the carnival crowd needed umbrellas. Even with the dull weather, several hundred thousand people attended, which means we can expect a full house at next year’s competition.

The University of Minnesota Intelligent Vehicles Lab (IV Lab) and the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA) supported our display. Craig Shankwitz from the IV Lab and Mike Abegg from MVTA, along with numerous support staff from their organizations, brought their latest driver-assisted city bus to the event for public tours.

Dr. Shankwitz spoke about the driver-assistance systems at this year’s ION International Technical Meeting. (See article in this issue on page 1.) The new system will improve mobility and safety and reduce congestion, by driving these city transit buses along highway shoulders. Their system uses differential GPS, inertial sensors, and laser scanners along with geospatial databases.

LET’S PLOW!North Star Section Kicks Off Autonomous Snowplow Contest at St. Paul’s Winter Carnival

Bring on the snow!

Celebrating a successful event with Winter Carnival organizers pictured L to R: Randy Dewitz, Operations Director, Saint Paul Winter Carnival; Mark Ahlbrecht, ION; Vibhor Bageshwar, ION; Thomas Jakel, ION; Suneel Sheikh, ION; Beth Pinkney, CEO, Saint Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation (SPFHF); Kari Boe-Schmidtz, Chair, Saint Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation (SPFHF); Billy Gruber, Hitching Post Motorsports.

The University of Minnesota (UMN) and the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA) driver-assisted city bus on display.

The new system will be deployed in 10 MVTA buses. The bus demo included a heads-up display of street markings and

collision avoidance, with torque feedback on the steering wheel and tactile seat shakers for lane departure prevention. The system surprised and delighted those who took the tour.

Also on display was an all-terrain four-wheel vehicle (ATV) with a front-end plow provided by Hitching Post Motorsports. Billy and Chandra Gruber from Hitching Post spent both days with our ION group showing vehicle options that could be used in the upcoming competition.

Along with these supporters, the Minnesota Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS Foundation) helped greet visitors to our display. This national all-volunteer, all-women organization allocates grant funds for graduate-level science students.

Our display included videos of past Robotic Lawn Mower competitions and Mini-Urban Challenges and a Discovery Channel video of the IV Lab’s operational guidance system of road snowplows in Alaska.

Several different groups showed significant interest in the lawn mower competition and many high school students took Mini-Urban Challenge brochures and applications to show their teachers.

The North Star Section thanks all of the volunteers who made this event possible. We would also like to thank our competition sponsors, including the ION Satellite Division, Lockheed Martin Corp., ASTER Labs, Inc., Honeywell, Inc., and Hitching Post Motorsports.

— Suneel Sheikh, ASTER Labs.


ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECTIONThe Rocky Mountain section (RMS) has

recently redesigned their website (http://rms.ion.org) and planned two meetings this past quarter. On December 10, 2009, Dr. Mark Crews (former GPS Chief Engineer at the GPS Wing and currently Chief Technology Officer with ITT Space Systems) presented an overview of the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system and its relationship with GPS operations. On January 27, 2010, Dr. Penina Axelrad (2009 recipient of ION’s Kepler award and Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado) provided an overview of current GNSS curriculum and research at the CU-Boulder campus and presented her recent ION paper titled “Enhancing GNSS Acquisition by Combining Signals from Multiple Channels and Satellites”. Both presentations are posted on the RMS website for your viewing. During the annual meeting in January, the election of officers resulted in Brad Michelson as chair, Todd Scott as vice-chair, Ty Armstrong as secretary, and Stephen Bolt as treasurer. Our next meeting is scheduled for late April. If you would like more information on upcoming RMS events, visit our website and contact the Section officers.

NORTh STAR SECTIONOn January 23 and 24, 2010 the Section had

a very successful promotional display for their 2011 Autonomous Snowplow Competition at this year’s Saint Paul Winter Carnival in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. For a more detailed description of the event and the competition see the story on page 12 of this newsletter.

ioN Member News and Notes

Section News and Notes

neW Ion offICerS & CommIttee ChAIrSA t the conclusion of the ION

2010 International Technical Meeting, the gavel was officially passed to the newly elected ION officers and committee chairs. The election results are as follows: Pres-ident: Dr. Mikel Miller, Air Force Research Laboratory; Executive Vice President: Dr. Todd Walter, Stanford University; Treasurer: Dr. John Betz, The MITRE Corporation; Eastern Vice President: Patricia

Doherty, Boston College; Western Vice President: John Clark, The Aerospace Corporation; Eastern Council Member-at-Large: Dr. Jade Morton, Miami University; Western Council Member-at-Large: John Nielson, Rockwell Collins; Air Representative: Dr. John Studenny, CMC Electronics, Canada; Land Representative: Dr. Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, The Ohio State University; Marine Represen-

tative: Cdr. Joe Chop, U.S. Coast Guard; Space Representative: Dr. Larry Young, Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The following committee chairs were appointed: Nominat-ing chair: Dr. Chris Hegarty, The MITRE Corporation; Finance Chair: Dr. Maarten Uijt de Haag, Ohio University; Membership Chair: Dr. Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, The Ohio State University; Fellow Selection

Chair: Karen Van Dyke, U.S. DOT/RITA ; Technical Committee Chair: Dr. Todd Walter, Stanford Univer-sity; Publication Chair: Dr. Boris Pervan, Illinois Institute of Technol-ogy; Meeting Chair: Dr. Frank van Graas, Ohio University; Awards Chair: Dr. Todd Walter, Stanford University; Bylaws Committee Chair: Chuck Bye, Honeywell; Outreach Chair: Dr. Jade Morton, Miami University.

DAYTON SECTIONThe ION Dayton Section has continued to hold monthly meetings con-

sisting of luncheons and invited speak-ers discussing exciting and cutting-edge navigation topics. The meetings were attended by faculty, staff, and students from The Air Force Institute of Technology, Miami University, Ohio University, and The Ohio State University. Navigation engineers from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and local industry were also present. In September, Dr. Andrei Shkel of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and University of California Irvine spoke on micro-technology for position, navigation, and timing systems. The following month, Dr. Jacob Campbell of Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Sensors Directorate discussed his work with the DARPA Precision INS program. The discussion outlined the utilization of interferometers to sense acceleration and rotation rates of laser cooled atoms. In November the Dayton Section hosted Dr. Dave Doman, a

AlbERTA CANADA SECTIONOn February 12, 2010 Professor Gerard

Lachapelle gave a presentation on Training Canadian Olympic Skiers with Stealth™. Professor Lachapelle explained that The PLAN Group of the Schulich School of Engineering had developed and tested, in collaboration with Own The Podium 2010 and Alpine Canada Alpin, an ultra-precise, ultra-light and autonomous sensor, namely STEALTH™, the Sensor for the Training of Elite Athletes, to support the Canadian Alpine Ski Team during training. The GPS-GLONASS based sensor had proven to operate very well under a variety of conditions and is now used routine-ly by the ski team. The presentation described the requirements and trials that resulted in the current system. A description of the sensor components, assembly, mode of operation, techni-cal specifications and performance was presented. The positioning and motion components displayed to athletes and coaches for performance evaluation were described using data collected on ski slopes in the Canadian Rockies and elsewhere.

On December 4, 2009 the section met to hear Dr. Todd Walter of Stanford University give a presentation on The Wide Area Augmentation System

(WAAS) which highlighted the his-tory of WAAS, the key challenges to its development, and how it will evolve in response to the modernization of GPS and the fielding of new constellations of navigation satellites.

Senior Aerospace Engineer with AFRL Air Vehicle Directorate. Dr. Doman presented his work in the area of flapping-wing micro air vehicles, a topic of much inter-est to the U.S. Air Force. The first section meeting of 2010 was a social gather-ing held at a local restaurant. Plans for upcoming events include a tour of Ohio University’s Russ College of Engineering and Avionics Engineering Center. Dr. Frank van Graas of Ohio University is scheduled to give a talk about his ION Congressional Fellowship with NASA. Air Force Captain Chris Wellbaum will be speaking at an upcoming meeting about his work on the Battlefield Air Targeting Camera Autonomous Micro-Air Vehicle (BATCAM). The Dayton Section also plans to host Patricia Doherty, the ION Eastern Region Vice President, of Boston College at our February meeting.

Il Sole è MobileThe sun has moods, just like the rest of us. And from now through the climax of Solar Cycle 24 in 2011–12, its solar flares and magnetic storms may play havoc with GPS signals by making them unavailable for a period of time or causing serious errors in signal data. It could even disable the satellites themselves.

What that means for GPS users ranges from minor in-convenience to life-threatening disruption. Satellites could slow down or fall out of orbit, pilots on polar flights could be forced to avoid the entire area because of radiation and GPS signal blackout, ships, and planes and floating oil rigs might not be able to count on the data they receive.

Motorists in as much as half the world could be without a working SatNav device for a time — or, worse, without an ATM.

Space weather can even affect migratory animals that depend on magnetic fields to navigate.

But help is on the way. An Atlas 5 rocket sent NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) into space on February 11 with an $850-million, five-year mission to find out more about the sun’s magnetic field activity and space weather and, hopefully, to improve


NaVIgatION NOVeltIes

What’s New in the PNT World?

Don’t Blame the WeathermanDid you schedule a hike and a thunderstorm drenched you? Or cancelled a picnic and the sun shown all day? Don’t curse the weatherman — blame it on water vapor.

A Delft University researcher is determined to reduce the errors caused by water vapor in the atmosphere. The misty molecules cause lots of trouble, scattering or delaying signals from GPS satellites and other instruments and making it hard to be absolutely precise about the weather.

Roderik Lindenbergh from the Delft Uni-versity of Technology has mapped the distribu-tion of water vapor from the ground and from space, pointing the way to much more accurate readings for weather prediction and many other applications.

From space, he used a Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) on the Envisat European Earth Observation Satellite and GPS satellite data to measure the distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere.

The GPS readings are less accurate, but more current. The MERIS readings are very detailed, but it takes about three days to map the whole Earth.

From Earth, he used MERIS plus data from 25 GPS stations all over the Netherlands. In this case, he used the position of the satellites, the height of the ground stations and the signal delay to make his water vapor distribution map.

Lots of data. Very precise. Maybe one day soon the weatherman can get it right.

forecasting enough to make it possible to safeguard GPS and other technologies.

Researchers would like to be able to say with 90 percent certainty whether a flare will occur in the next 12 to 24 hours. Right now, observers have to see the visible flare before they can prepare for its effect — and that means the charged particles are already on their way to Earth.

The SDO will reach geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles from the Earth, where instruments on the spacecraft will transmit images of the sun continuously at a resolution much higher than HD TV. They will be sent to a new 18-meter radio antenna at White Sands Space Harbor in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

“Two or three days’ lead time can make the difference between safeguarding the advanced technologies we depend on every day and the catastrophic loss of these capabilities and trillions of dollars in disrupted commerce,” said Thomas Bogdan, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo: Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Solar limb flare. Photo courtesy NASA/JAXA.

SDO launch. Photo courtesy ULA.

X-TREME Sailing Alone There seems to be a rash of younger and younger people, with more and more equip-ment, navigating alone across the oceans with twitters, blogs, and sponsorships.

Commendable. But nothing beats the original.Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail

alone around the world, wrote a book in 1900 that made him and his oyster sloop Spray as popular as Roy Rogers and Trigger. (Sailing


caleNdar

MAY 201003-06: IEEE/ION PLANS 2010, Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa, Indian Wells/Palm Springs, California Contact: ION Tel: +1 703-366-2723 Fax: +1 703-366-2724 Web: www.ion.org

16-21: RTCM Annual Assembly, Catamaran Resort Hotel, San Diego, California Contact: RTCM Tel: + 1 703-527-2000 Fax: +1 703-351-9932E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.rtcm.org

JUNE 2010 07-10: JSDE/ION JNC 2010, Wyndham Orlando Resort, Orlando, Florida Contact: The ION Tel: +1 703-366-2723 Fax: +1 703-366-2724 Web: www.ion.org

SEPTEMBER 2010 21-24: ION GNSS 2010, Portland Convention Center, Portland, Oregon Contact: The ION Tel: +1 703-366-2723 Fax: +1 703-366-2724 Web: www.ion.org

OCTOBER 201019-21: European Navigation Conference - Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ENC GNSS) 2010, City Hall of Braunschweig, Germany Contact: German Institute of Navigation Tel: +49-228-20197.0 Fax: +49-228-20197.19 Web: www.dgon.de

25-27: GNC Challenges for Autonomous Weapons Workshop 2010, Fort Walton Beach, Florida Contact: ION Tel: +1 703-366-2723 Fax: +1 703-366-2724 Web: www.ion.org

JANUARY 201124-26: ION International Technical Meeting (ITM) 2011, Catamaran Resort Hotel, San Diego, California Contact: ION Tel: +1 703-366-2723 Fax: +1 703-366-2724 Web: www.ion.org

GPS RefereeWas the football caught before it bounced? Did the quarterback make the goal?

A Carnegie Mellon computer engineer and her students are using embedded touch sensors, GPS receiver, and accelerometers to create a prototype American football that knows the answers — a virtual GPS referee. Their next prototype will add data from GPS receivers near the field.

Associate Professor Priya Narasimhan loves football. She especially loves the Pittsburgh Steelers. She teaches a 15-week Sports Technol-ogy course in the Electrical and Computer Engi-

neering Department in which students combine technologies for real-time motion and tracking analysis of players and their equipment.

Right now, the Football Engineering Research Project includes “smart” gloves, hel-mets, kicking shoes and, of course, the smart football itself.

It calculates its speed, position and trajectory and sends that information to a computer outfit-ted with home-programmed animation and a 3-D visualization engine. See it — believe it.

The goal? Better training before the game, more reliable calls during the games, and, hey, cooler games altogether!



Alone Around the World has never been out of print — you can now buy a Kindle edition.)Captain Slocum left Nova Scotia in 1895 and landed on Rhode Island in 1898 after more than three

years and 46,000 miles of ocean sailing without a chronometer, much less GPS. On a very long stretch between Juan Fernandez and the Marquesas in the South Pacific, he shot his famous (and anachronistic) lunar observation:

“On the forty-third day from land — a long time to be at sea alone — the sky being beauti-fully clear and the moon being “in distance” with the sun, I threw up my sextant for sights. I found from the result of three observations, after long wrestling with lunar tables, that her longitude by observation agreed within five miles of that by dead-reckoning.

This was wonderful; both, however, might be in error, but somehow I felt confident that both were nearly true, and that in a few hours more I should see land; and so it happened, for then I made the island of Nukahiva, the southernmost of the Marquesas group, clear-cut and lofty. The verified longitude when abreast was somewhere between the two reckonings; this was extraordi-nary. All navigators will tell you that from one day to another a ship may lose or gain more than five miles in her sailing-account, and again, in the matter of lunars, even expert lunarians are considered as doing clever work when they average within eight miles of the truth.”

We suppose you could call Slocum’s achievement “X-TREME Sailing Alone.”

After a variety of difficulties that afflicted the world’s GNSS systems toward the end of last year, most of them recovered their footing and got back on track in 2010.

GPSAfter a series of delays caused by technical issues, the first Block IIF satellite has moved to Cape Canaveral for a possible May 17 launch.

With the impending space vehicle desig-nation SVN62, the Boeing-built generation of spacecraft will provide the operational civil L5 signal, an extended design life of 12 years, and faster processors with more memory.

Meanwhile, the 2nd Space Operations Squadron at Schiever Air Force Base, Colorado, has begun reconfiguring the GPS constellation to improve the availability of satellite signals. The move is driven largely by the needs of U.S. and allied military users operating in mountainous terrain and cities in conflict zones of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The final configuration, expected to take up to 24 months to move the space vehicles (SVs) into new orbital positions, will effectively create a 27-satellite array — three more than required by current policy. Although the constellation currently has 30 operational satellites, not including SVN49/PRN1 that has still not been set healthy, a number of the spacecraft are located nearby other satellites — effectively creating a 24-SV geometry.

Although proposals to expand the con-stellation have been around for many years, the concept gained greater urgency as U.S. air sorties and ground troops use GPS to target adversaries in the steep Afghan terrain where satellite signals are frequently blocked by 45- to 60-degree hillside slopes. Report-edly, Air Force calculations of availability of GPS PNT on a global basis do not take into

consideration local terrain features and assume only a five-degree masking angle for satellite-receiver visibility.

However, a series of computer simula-tions revealed that masking angles of 45 degrees rendered 3-D GPS positioning unavailable in the country for between 90 minutes and 3 hours per day, and 60-degree slopes increased outages to between 5 and 11 hours per day.

Essentially, the repositioning plan will take advantage of today’s over-populated constellation to improve coverage. The existing constellation replenishment strategy placed new GPS satellites close to older spacecraft to protect against possible failing satellites.

Although military needs drove the deci-sion, the change will benefit all GPS users, including civilians, as the number of GPS satellites in view from any point on earth will increase, potentially increasing accuracy of GPS receivers.

In another GPS Wing/2 SOPS initiative, however, software upgrade to the ground command and control system has proved troublesome, as changes in the navigation message have apparently caused some models of civil, commercial, and military receivers to malfunction.

Designed to enable telemetry, tracking, and commanding for the new GPS IIF satel-lites and provide over-the-air distribution of encryption keys for military user P(Y)-code equipment, the January 11 changes appar-ently fall within the interface specifications of the latest versions of GPS technical docu-ments that receiver manufacturers use to build equipment. The software version in

question is the Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP) V5.5C.

The GPS Wing issued a Notice Advisory to NAVSTAR Users (NANU) through the NAVCEN (U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center) for civilian and commercial GPS users and through the GPS Operations Center (GPSOC) for military users, asking for feedback.

Col. Bernard Gruber, will become the GPS Wing com-mander later this year. He currently is the commander of the 45th Space Wing Operations Group at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.

Gruber served at the wing’s predecessor

organization, the NAVSTAR GPS Joint Pro-gram Office (GPS JPO) in the early 1990s, where he was involved with user equipment acquisition including the Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) procure-ment. He will replace Col. David Madden, who received this year’s Norman P. Hays Award. (See accompanying article on page 8 of this issue.)

GLONASSThe Russian GNSS system, GLONASS, has brought its contingent of transmitting satel-lites back up to 19, as spacecraft launched in December and others off-line for mainte-nance have returned to healthy status.

Three GLONASS-M spacecraft launched December 14 have come on the air, and two GLONASS space vehicles are in the


Col. Bernard Gruber

process of being phased out. Only one satellite remains off the air in “mainte-nance” status, GLONASS 726, a spacecraft launched in November 2008 that began exhibiting problems with its signal genera-tor last August. That difficulty led to the postponement of a triple-satellite launch in September 2009, which subsequently was rescheduled for March.

Although the GLONASS constellation has a specification of 21 operational satellites for full-time global positioning capability, 18 satellites are sufficient to provide coverage full-time over Russia itself.

Additional satellite launches are ex-pected later this year, including the flight test of the first GLONASS-K, a new generation of space vehicles that will add CDMA signals to GLONASS’s traditional FDMA transmissions.

GalileoOn January 27, representatives of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Euro-pean companies signed three key contracts to build the initial operational capability (IOC) Galileo system.

An €85 million (US$114.6 million) contract with Thales Alenia Space– Italy covers the industrial system support activities: system engineering, system performance, system assembly, integration and validation, signal-in-space engineering, security engineering and product assurance.

For the space segment, Germany’s OHB-System AG will receive €566-million (US$780 million) to build 14 satellites, with delivery of the first satellite in July 2012. As prime contractor, OHB teamed up with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL, United Kingdom).

Arianespace will provide launch services under a €397 million (US$569 million) contract, using five Soyuz launchers with an upgraded Fregat upper stage. The satellites will be launched in pairs from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, starting in December 2012.

Arianespace will also launch the first four operational satellites in the constel-lation, within the scope of the In Orbit Validation (IOV) program, from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, starting at the end of 2010.

Last fall, Galileo program managers acknowledged that the cost of Galileo would exceed the €3.4-billion ($5.04-billion) budget and take longer to implement. Program managers have downsized their expectations and now anticipate that Galileo will field an initial constellation of only 16 satellites (out of a planned 30) by the end of 2013: 4 in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites

being built by EADS-Astrium, and 12 IOC satellites.

Launch of the first two IOV satellites is currently scheduled for the end of Novem-ber 2010, followed by the other two in April 2011.

Meanwhile, responsibilities for the Gali-leo program are being reconfigured within the EC. The three satellite navigation units currently under DG-TREN with Fotis Kara-mitsos as director and Ruete as director-general, are moving from DG Transport to DG Industry and Entrepreneurship (DG-ENTR), headed by Director-General Heinz Zourek and Georgette Lalis as director.

The Galileo-related units are G3, infra-structure, deployment and exploitation, headed by Paul Verhoef; G4, applications and intelligent transport systems (ITS), headed by Edgar Thielman, and G5, legal

and financial aspects, where Karamitsos served as acting head of unit.

Compass (Beidou-2)China successfully launched another Compass satellite into geostationary orbit from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan province on January 17.

It is the third satellite in the second-generation Beidou program, following a middle earth orbit (MEO) spacecraft sent up April 14, 2007, and a GEO spacecraft on April 18, 2009.

China has also introduced a government-run Compass website in Chinese, www.beidou.gov.cn. Meanwhile, another Shanghai Naviga-tion Forum (NaviForum) is being planned for September 1–3 that will focus on the Compass navigation system. A previous NaviForum in December 2007 included presentations from engineering managers and political officials responsible Compass/Beidou-2. The 2010 event is supported by the China Ministry of Science and High Technology (MOST).

Program officials have reasserted plans to complete an initial regional system by 2012 and a complete 35-satellite constellation by 2020.


Site of Galileo station at Kourou, French Guiana. ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE - Photo Optique Video CSG, P. Baudon, 2009.


Satellite Division Chair Dr. Pratap Misra, continues to work to improve the quality of the technical program and to cultivate new topics.

• ThefirstGuidanceNavigation&Control(GNC) Miniature Autonomous Systems (MAS) workshop was held in 2008 and the second this past October 2009. The workshop has been hosted by the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and facilitated by the ION. The workshop serves the military contingency of our membership as is intended to bring together the DOD technical and user community, academia and industry to review and discuss advances in GNC for miniature autonomous systems. The workshop consists of both For Official Use Only (FOUO) and public forums.The 2009 organizing committee also

plans to implement the following in 2010: • Thescopeoftheworkshopistobe

expanded to include not only GNC miniature autonomous systems but rather all autonomous weapons.

• Theworkshopincludesrepresenta-tion from all branches of the DOD (Air Force, Army & Navy).

• Theworkshopistobeheldonabien-nial, rather than an annual, basis.

EDUCATION & OUTREACHEducation and outreach have become central to the goals and objectives of the Institute in our efforts to promote public awareness, achieve and sustain an interna-tional presence, promote young people’s in-terest in navigation and promote the ION as the center of PNT excellence and technical credibility. To achieve these goals we have participated in the following this past year:

Jointly Sponsored Technical Meetings & Workshops:The ION currently sponsors joint meetings with the IEEE AESS, the JSDE and AFRL; as well as participating in technical co-spon-sorship opportunities with other technical symposiums on an occasional basis. These jointly sponsored technical events attract potential new ION members and result in the expansion of ION’s technical programs.

MILLER continued from page 2 Navigation Science & Technology in Africa:

In March 2009 the ION sponsored travel funds for invited ION members to travel to Trieste, Italy, and teach navigation courses as part of an international partnership for sustainable development in navigation sci-ence and technology in Africa. The goal of this program was to educate African profes-sors and students who will in-turn provide a knowledgeable GNSS workforce in Africa. I was able to participate in this event and found it to be one of the most personally rewarding high-lights of my career.

The Satellite Division has approved additional funding for the 2010 Africa outreach program.

Thanks to all the ION members who volunteered their time, and a special thanks to Patricia Doherty for instigating and lead-ing these efforts.

Mini-Urban Challenge:

This past year the ION held the first Mini-Urban Challenge (MUC) Competition which challenged high school students to design and operate a robotic unmanned vehicle built from a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® kit that could accurately navigate through a LEGO city. There is no cost to the schools or the students to participate in the competition.

Two regional events were held in May 2009 (Dayton, OH - Wright-Patterson AFB and Ft Walton Beach, FL - Eglin AFB) and the National Event held in June (Dayton,

OH - Wright-Patterson AFB). There were six Ohio teams that registered for the Ohio regional competition; three of which competed on the regional level in Ohio. There were twelve teams that registered in Florida; eleven of which competed in Florida’s regional competition. The top three teams from each region, for a total of six teams made up of a total of 35 high school students and their academic advisors then participated in the national competi-tion in Ohio.

Four regional competitions have already been planned for 2010 in Louisiana, greater Washington, D.C. area, Ohio and Florida. The ION National Office has also accepted responsibility for the logistics for the 2010 competition and on-site competition sup-port which is being provided by ION staff member Rick Buongiovanni.

Major sponsors for 2010 include AFRL, ION and DOT with 14 other commercial sponsors. Lisa Beaty continues to work on obtaining sponsorship funds. If your orga-nization is not among the list of the 2010 sponsors I would encourage you to urge your organization to become a sponsor.

Thank you to Carrie New and Casey Mill-er for leading the growth of this program.

Robotic Lawn Mower Competition:

The Satellite Division’s 6th Annual Robotic Lawn Mower Competition was held in June 2009 and is planned again for June 2010. This was another successful event and with the MUC National Competition held at the same time, it was a great opportunity for both the high school and university students to get together to discuss robot applications and precision autonomous operations. This event is co-sponsored by AFRL, Honeywell and John Deere. Thank you to Dr. Jacob Campbell, Don Venable and the Dayton Section for leading this program.


Autonomous Snowplow Competition:

The Satellite Division sponsored the North Star Section in a static display for the ION’s Autonomous Snowplow Competition at the St. Paul Winter Carnival in January 2010. The objective for the 2011 competition is for teams (comprised of both students and professionals) to design a snowplow that will autonomously clear snow from a pre-defined field. The goal is to have the first competition at the St. Paul Winter Carnival in January 2011.

ION Participated in International Events:The ION exhibited at the European Navigation in Naples, Italy this past May. Rick Buongio-vanni manned the membership booth and Carl Andren and I served on the ENC technical com-mittee and as session chairs during the confer-ence. It was a great opportunity to meet with several of the European Navigation Institutes’ presidents and vice presidents.

Additionally, Carl Andren attended the meeting of the International Association of the Institutes of Navigation (IAIN) in October 2009 where he was elected vice president in the IAIN.

Continued Student Support:ION continues to fund:• studenttravelgrantsforstudent

presenters to attend ITM; • GraduateStudentAwards;Section

Scholarships; and • TheSatelliteDivisioncontinuesto

support the ION GNSS Student Awards. MOVING FORWARD IN 2010In 2010 I would like to continue to work on the goals established for 2009. I would also like to thank all of the volunteers for their efforts this past year. I look forward to seeing you at the IEEE/ION PLANS meeting on May 3-6, 2010 in Indian Wells, California.

corporate Profile

GMV is a privately owned technological business with a strong presence around the world. Founded in 1984, GMV offers its solutions, services and products in very diverse sectors: Aeronautics, Banking and Finances, Space, Defense, Health, Security, Transportation, Telecommunications, and Information Technology for Public Administration and large corporations. GMV is one of the leading suppliers of satellite ground systems, the third largest supplier to the European Satellite Navigation System Galileo, is deeply involved in the development of EGNOS, the European Space Based Augmentation System and develops a huge range of applications of satellite navigation technology. GMV’s U.S. headquarters are in Rockville, Maryland. and its European headquarters are in Madrid, Spain. More information about GMV and its products can be found at www.gmv.com.

InterSense, Inc. www.intersense.com

EADS Astrium www.astrium.eads.net

The Institute of Navigation is pleased to welcome these new ION corporate members:

For more information on corporate membership in The Institute of Navigation, please contact Kenneth P. Esthus at 703-366-2723, ext 104, or visit us at www.ion.org.

Due June 30 Parkinson Award Nominations Graduate students in GNSS technology, applications, or policy who have complet-ed a single-author thesis or dissertation and who are ION members are eligible for this prestigious award and $2,500 hono-rarium. Nominations are to be submitted by a regular or research faculty member of a college or university.

This award honors Dr. Bradford W. Parkinson for establishing the U.S. Global Positioning System and the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation.

For application details and entry rules go to www.ion.org. Nominations must be received by June 30.

Due June 30Kepler Award Nominations The purpose of the Johannes Kepler Award is to honor an individual for sustained and significant contributions to the develop-ment of satellite navigation. The winner of this award will be determined by a spe-cial nominating committee. The Kepler Award is presented only when deemed appropriate. All members of The Institute of Navigation are eligible for nomination. You are encouraged to submit the names of individuals for consideration.

To submit a nomination, go to the ION website at www.ion.org. Click on Awards, scroll down, click on Kepler Award, then click on the Awards form for complete nomination instructions. Nominations must be received by June 30. Nomination packages may be sent to: Satellite Division Awards Committee Chair, The Institute of Navigation, 8551 Rixlew Lane, Suite 360, Manassas, VA 20109.


Part of an international search and res-cue tracking network, COSPAS-SARSAT,

the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites and Russia’s COSPAS spacecraft detect and locate distress signals broadcast by transponders (e.g., emergency position information reporting beacon or EPIRB) on aircraft, boats and personal handheld devices. The satellites then relay the information to first respond-ers on the ground.

Most people already know about NOAA satellite weather and ocean data collection. “It’s a little known fact that these valu-able instruments also made the difference between life and death for 195 people last year,” said Mary Kizca, an administrator for the agency’s Satellite and Information Service.

When a NOAA satellite pinpoints a distress signal within the United States or its surrounding waters, the information is relayed to the SARSAT Mission Control Center in Suitland, Maryland. From there, it is sent to a Rescue Coordination Center, operated by either the U.S. Air Force, for land rescues, or the U.S. Coast Guard, for water rescues.

SARSAT is jointly operated by the United States, Canada, and France, and COSPAS by Russia. The combined system is in its 28th year: it has aided more than 27,000 rescues worldwide, including 6,232 in the United States and its surrounding waters.

Last year’s saves in the United States included 154 water rescues, 8 land rescues, and 33 people who were rescued because of their personal locator beacons.

In 2009, Alaska had the most rescues with 49, often from incidents arising from snow mobile breakdowns, according to

SARSAT logs. Last December, for example, a man was traveling by snow mobile to Point Thompson, Alaska. His ride broke down about 18 miles south of Katovik, and SARSAT received a distress call from his personal locator beacon.

The relay worked perfectly from satellite to the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center to North Slope Borough Search and Rescue. The driver hitched a ride back to town with NSB, unharmed.

Water rescues in the Gulf of Mexico also show up frequently in SARSAT logs (Florida and Texas had the second and third most rescues in 2009.) These are often complex operations, with numerous agencies, com-panies and individuals involved.

For example, on February 21, a helicop-ter crashed 40 miles southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana. The pilot managed to get into a life raft and manually activate his

personal 406 MHz digital beacon. (A digital standard that replaces analog signals retired the same month the accident occurred.)

Satellites relayed the message to both Air Force and Coast Guard Rescue Centers. They confirmed the signal with the helicop-ter’s owner, who sent out another aircraft to search the area. Alerts were sent to oil rigs in the Gulf and the message reached a pleasure vessel, the Miss Adrian, who picked the pilot up, none the worse for the experience. The helicopter, of course, is another story.

The current SARSAT system consists of two different satellite constellations. Geostationary (GEO) satellites provide constant coverage and distress alerts are relayed instantaneously to ground stations.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites offer other strengths. They cover the polar re-gions, use Doppler processing techniques, and are less susceptible to signal blockage than the GEOS. Canada and France supply the onboard receivers.

Still, the system does have limitations, and a next-generation rescue system is be-ing planned that will use modernized GPS MEO satellites for better coverage, quicker response, more redundancy, and the elimi-nation of terrain masking. The Distress Alerting Satellite System (DASS ) will be an auxiliary payload on 24 future GPS Block III satellites. DASS could be configured to provide an acknowledgement back to the EPIRB that an alert has been received, however, that enhancement is not cur-rently included in the DASS design because of lack of a clear requirement. Europe’s Galileo GNSS system will support EPIRB alerting and is reportedly being designed with response acknowledgement capability.

NOAA Satellites to the RescueU.S. Weather LEOs and GEOs Support International Emergency Network

In 2009, nearly 200 downed pilots, shipwrecked mariners and stranded hikers owed their lives to NOAA’s fleet of polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites.


On the Web:NOAA/SARSAT: http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov

COSPAS-SARSAT: http://www.cospas-sarsat.org/index.php?lang=en

Distress Alerting Satellite System (DASS): http://uscgsar-onscene.blogspot.com/2009/08/dass-next-generation-sarsat.html http://searchandrescue.gsfc.nasa.gov/dass/index.html

GMDSS: http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/gmdss/

Meanwhile, COSPAS-SARSAT comprises part of a broader effort to create a robust, modernized Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) supported by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The RTCM (Radio Technical Commission for Maritime) hosts a GMDSS Task Force that is working to link terrestrial and space-based systems into a strong search and rescue network.

The next meeting of the GMDSS Task Force will take place on May 20, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Catamaran Hotel, 3999 Mission Blvd., San Diego, California. For more information, contact the task force chairman, USCG Capt. Jack Fuechsel (retired) at 703-527-0484, e-mail: [email protected].

Photo: Courtesy NOAA

“Military Navigation Technology: The Foundation for Military Ops”June 7–10, 2010 • Wyndham Orlando Resort • Orlando, FL

Co-Sponsoring the Largest U.S. Military Navigation Conference with Joint Services & Government Participation

REGISTER TOdAY!

www.jointnavigation.org


Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 (SEI 2010), the latest in a series

of biennial reports from the National Science Board, sketches the trends and status of science and engineering (S&E) in the United States and worldwide.

And many of the metrics reflect changes that The Institute of Navigation is experienc-ing in its own membership, conferences, and activities: a growing number of women entering the field, higher percentages of foreign nationals receiving S&E-related doctorates at U.S. schools and jobs in this country, and the rapid growth among Asian countries in R&D investment, authorship of academic and technical articles, and high-tech manufacturing.

But some less well-known — even surprising — developments are noted: employment trends and projections show S&E employment growth higher (and unemployment rates, lower) than the U.S. occupations as a whole; U.S. high school students’ math and science test scores have dropped over the past 15 years, but the more of such classes that students take, the more likely they are to apply to college and do well there; and the number of undergraduate engineering students at U.S. colleges and university in 2007 was at its highest level since the early 1980s.

Submitted January 15 to the President and Congress, the report series was designed to provide a broad base of quantitative information and U.S. science, engineering, and technology for use by policymakers, researchers, and the general public.

The SEI is prepared by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) under the guid-ance of the NSB. Overseen by a special 13-member NSB committee, the report pointedly does not offer policy options or make policy recommendations.

More than 130 experts from academia, research institutes, S&E-related founda-tions and agencies, and private industry contributed to the effort. The report is available free on-line as a download-able PDF at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/?org=NSF.

Changing Face(s) of S&EAs has become apparent in the most cur-sory review of attendance at ION events over the past 20 years, more women, members of minority groups in the United States, and foreign nationals have entered the field.

In 1993, women made up 42 percent of S&E graduate students, a proportion that had reached 50 percent by 2006. How-ever, large variations among fields persist including a significantly lower percentage of women in the primary fields from which the positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) community draws its members.

In 2006, women comprised only 25 percent of computer sciences graduate students, 23 percent of those in engineer-ing, and 20 percent in physics. But even those figures were higher than in 1993: 23, 15, and 14 percent, respectively.

Overall, undergraduate engineering enrollment in the United States declined through most of the 1980s and 1990s, rose from 2000 to 2003, declined slightly through 2006, and rose to 431,900 in 2007. Most of the post-2002 increase in U.S. doctorate production reflects degrees awarded to temporary and permanent visa holders, who in 2007 earned about 11,600 of 22,500 U.S. S&E doctorates. Half of these

students are from East Asia, mostly from China (31 percent), India (14 percent), and South Korea (7 percent).

Students on temporary visas received 33 percent of S&E doctorates in the United States in 2007 and 50 percent or more of doctoral degrees awarded in engineering, physics, mathematics, computer sciences, and economics. The NSB report indicates that a large fraction of these students stay in the United States: more than three-quarters of foreign doctoral degree recipients in 2007 indicated that they planned to stay in the United States after graduation.

For engineering, the trend is even more pronounced. Since 1999, the share of U.S. engineering doctorates earned by temporary and permanent visa holders has risen from 51 to 68 percent in 2007, according to the SEI 2010 report. Nearly three-quarters of foreign national recipients of engineering doctorates were from East Asia or India.

Many of these individuals, especially those on temporary visas, will leave the United States after earning their doctorates, but if past trends continue, a large propor-tion will stay. Sixty percent of temporary visa holders who had earned a U.S. S&E doctor-ate in 1997 were gainfully employed in the United States in 2007 — the highest 10-year stay rate ever observed.

American Lead ErodesIn broadest aspects of S&E activities, the United States continues to maintain a posi-tion of leadership but has experienced a gradual erosion of its position in many spe-cific areas, said the report, citing two con-tributing developments: the rapid increase in a broad range of Asian S&E capabilities (excluding the already highly developed Japanese market) and the fruition of European Union (EU) efforts to increase its relative competitiveness in R&D, innovation, and high technology.

Science and Engineering Indicators 2010

NSF Report Outlines Trends in Fields Supporting Navigation


“The U.S. economy continues to be a leading global economy and competitor in technology-based industries as measured by its overall performance, market position in knowledge- and tech-nology-intensive (KTI) industries, and position in patenting and other measures of technological capability,” states the report.

Nonetheless, the margin of leadership has declined in terms of research papers, S&E doctorates awarded, and high-tech trade.

Since the early 1990s, the number of natural sciences and engineering (NS&E) doctorates awarded in Japan and India has increased by more than 70 percent — to approximately 7,100 and 7,500, respectively, according to the report. The number awarded in South Korea nearly tripled over the same period, reaching approximately 3,500.

Meanwhile, China’s domestic NS&E doc-torate awards have grown more than tenfold over the period, to about 21,000 in 2006, nearing the number of NS&E doctorates awarded in the United States.

The same trend appears in the publi-cation of articles based on S&E research efforts. Over the past 20 years, the number of engineering research articles increased worldwide at a rate substantially faster than total S&E article production.

This trend was particularly apparent in Asia, where the growth rate in engineering article output was 7.8 percent, exceed-ing that in the United States and Japan, where growth averaged less than 2 percent, and in the EU, about 4.4 percent. China’s engineering-related article production grew by close to 16 percent a year, and the other Asian economies — excluding China and Japan — expanded their combined output or articles by 10 percent a year.

Consequently, the production of engineering research articles has shifted away from established S&E nations, the SEI report concludes. In 1988, the U.S. share of engineering articles was 36 percent, but had fallen to 20 percent by 2008. Japan’s share declined from 12 to 7 percent during the same period. Among the developed regions, only the EU managed to maintain its share at 28 percent. Overall, Asia’s share of research articles, excluding Japan, increased from 7 to 30 percent, with China producing nearly half of these articles in 2008.

Finally, in the area of trade, the United States had small surpluses in high-tech goods during the mid- to late 1990s, but these have turned into a widening deficit since 1998, reflecting the rise of off-shore manufacturing, particularly in China and other Asian nations besides Japan. The U.S. trade deficit in ICT goods — communications and semiconduc-tors and computers — reached a record $126 billion in 2007 before contracting marginally to $119 billion in 2008, reflecting the general reduction of imports as a result of the current recession.

Nonetheless, science and engineering oc-cupations in the United States are projected to grow by 21.4 percent between 2006 and 2016, while employment in all occupations is pro-jected to grow only 10.4 percent over the same period. Specifically, among the navigation-related professional categories, these are the projected growth figures: physical scientists,

16 percent; engineers, 11 percent; computer scientists and mathematicians, 28 percent.

U.S. S&E EducationThe data in the SEI 2010 report suggests that the experience of U.S. students in elementary and high schools is contributing to these trends and underscoring the need for efforts such as the ION’s Mini-Urban Challenge (see articles on pages 11 and 18 in this issue).

Teaching of mathematics and science classes by teachers trained in those fields was less prevalent at lower grade levels than at higher grade levels. According to the report, in 2004 about 40 percent of fifth grade students in public schools were taught mathematics and science by in-field teachers. By the eighth grade in 2007, however, this figure had grown to more than 80 percent with in-field teachers in their mathematics and science.

Many teachers of fifth-grade mathematics and science have not participated in profes-sional development in those fields. Those who had participated reported that their activities were of relatively short duration, and less than half of participants reported their activities as very useful.

Results from one international test, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), showed that American 15-year-olds scored below most selected nations in 2006, and the U.S. standing among selected nations dropped below its 2000 rank in both math-ematics and science.


NSF Report Outlines Trends in Fields Supporting Navigation

Figure 3-56Foreign-born S&E degree holders, by citizenship/visa status and year of entry to United States: 1980–99

NOTE: Some data on foreign-born S&E degree holders are available through 2003; however, data after 1999 exclude many individuals with foreign degrees.

SOURCE: National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics, Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT) (2003), http://sestat.nsf.gov


Temporary visa

Before1980

1980

80

60

40

20

0

100

Percent

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Permanent visa

U.S. citizen

THE INSTITUTE OF NAVIGATION8551 Rixlew Lane, Suite 360Manassas, VA 20109-3701

Nonprofit Org.

U.S. Postage

PAIDPermit No. 425

Southern, MD

May 4-6, 2010 • Tutorials May 3Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa • Indian Wells, CA

Jointly sponsored by the IEEE AESS & the ION

REGISTER TODAY: www.plansconference.org

TECHNICAL SESSION TRACkS

• NavigationSensorTechnologies

• NavigationArchitectures&Systems

• ApplicationsofNavigationTechnologies

• Navigation&PositioninginGNSSLimitedEnvironments

POSITION LOCATION AND NAVIGATION SYMPOSIUM

ION Newsletter, Volume 19 Number 4 (Winter 2009-2010) · put GPS in cell phones: assisted-GPS,...

Documents

Transcript of ION Newsletter, Volume 19 Number 4 (Winter 2009-2010) · put GPS in cell phones: assisted-GPS,...